46 years of hurt?

That's it. Another World Cup and another dismal England display. We've had a great array of players to chose from over the past decade. Starting with Michael Owen, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville and David Beckham, and climaxing with Wayne Rooney, John Terry, Ashley Cole and Steven Gerrard, England has had world class talent. Where's it all gone wrong? And why has it all gone wrong?

It is all to easy to blame the coaches. But taking everything into consideration, it has to ultimately lay at their door. Since the early 2000s, forgetting the disastrous McClaren reign, we have had expensive foreign coaches. Coaches who you would have to say, having watched them controlling the team, don't understand how the English game works. We're not technically brilliant. We need to play with passion, while being organised, having a good goalscoring forward, who is complemented by wingers, playing on the wings and putting in crosses. We have to have a combative midfield, getting in amongst people and doing the dirty job that you don't see in an Italian or Spanish game. So why the hell is Capello playing Gerrard, the combative game winning midfielder on the left? He is not a winger; he can't provide teasing crosses from the left because he doesn't have a brilliant left foot. If you're going to play him on a wing, at least the right would be feasible.

SA 2010 comes down to poor management of the team. Heskey isn't a player who can score goals. And at the biggest tournament in the world you can't play a striker solely because he's big. If that's the case I know a few guys from the pub who could be in the squad. So why would Capello bring him on in search of goals? He also bought on SWP as his supply line! Shaun Wright-Phillips should bang a nail in the wall immediately and then hook his boots on it. He's awful, and yet Capello thought he was a better option than keeping the composed, dangerous Milner on?

I'm out of optimism. The England team has robbed me of that. Where do we go now? What do we do? How many tournaments have Fat Frank and Steve Gerrard got in them? All I know is Capello's 5 million a year will help him sleep at night, and just think what that five million could have gone towards. Embarrassing. I kept making excuses; they can play better; they are a good team. It's just the other team's negative tactics. It's time to face it. It's time to be realistic. We went out in the second round because we're only in the top 16 nations in the world.

The Captain Conundrum.

Well. It's not very often that a team, never mind an international football team, changes its captain three times before a major tournament. But needs must, and Capello needs to, so we must accept it. Terry was stripped of the captaincy originally, and rightly so, but I've never seen Ferdinand in that captaining role. He doesn't even captain his club, with Ryan Giggs and co deputizing for Neville who I don't find the enigmatic captain anyway, so what makes him right to captain his country?

Gerrard has been given the captaincy following Ferdinand's injury, (change.) He's been injured more times than Peter Crouch has pinched himself for waking up next to Abbey Clancy this season. Gerrard's form is really at the low of his career at the finale of this season, so why would Capello give him the all important, and envied, captaincy? Exactly because of his poor form. We all agree he is a fantastic player. In the mold of Bryan Robson, Captain Marvel, he majestically drags his teams out of the mire time and time again. And the captaincy is the tool to get the best out of him. Giving him the impetus to play well, where in the past he's been subdued while wearing the three lion's shirt.

Ferdinand is a great loss. However, let us remain pragmatic. He's had a dismal season through injuries and form resulting from the injuries. If he had played a great campaign and then been crocked by Heskey in training, it would have made for more gutting news... but he hasn't. King, at the latter end of the season, and Dawson throughout the campaign have been consistently solid as a rock, so surely they are the better option anyway? Ferdinand is undoubted world class while in form. He's not in form though, so it's not as bad as it sounds.

Joe Cole returning is a massive plus as well. The jinking diminutive winger is class in an England shirt, and that's a rarity these days. Play well for club - play dismal for country is usually the formula, but he's the anomaly, the exception, to that rule. Well both the Coles are, and what a wing we could now have with those at the helm.

It's looking promising. Pre tournament omens aren't too bad. Crouch is at 66 to 1 to be the tournament's top goal scorer, so with all kinds of 66 connections, if Crouch plays and scores against America I'm going to Ladbrookes to put a tenner on England to win the whole thing.